tell what this particular man needed, who was in direct communication with the secrets of his heart. This would be a sign of the Kingdom of Heaven, the sign of that dominion over human beings, of that fellowship with human spirits, which our Lord was announcing in all His discourses. Accordingly it is this speech which provokes the indignation of the scribes. Who is this that speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone? The whole question between Him and them was gathered up into these words: 'Is there a Son of Man? Is there One 'who unites man to God? Is there One in whom God 'is seeking man—seeking to reconcile man to Himself?' The Scribes believed there was no such Person. They thought there was a God, a very terrible God, who might, perhaps, be induced to forgive the sins of some who could find out the right method of influencing Him. And this forgiveness, what was it? Not the removal of a curse which was crushing the spirit and separating it from goodness and truth, but simply the escape from a certain amount of punishment which it had been decreed should be the recompense for a certain amount of evil doing. Forgiveness in any real sense-in any sense which it bears in the mind of a true father among men, who wins back his child to his home, and puts away out of his thoughts that which has set them at war-this the scribe did not recognise. And therefore he could not practically recognise it in his relations with his fellow-men. Forgiveness towards them meant only the allowing them to escape punishment. Was, then, the act of enabling the palsied man to rise and walk an exceptional act of power, done to shew how Christ had broken through the laws of the universe? Accord

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ing to the Evangelist, it was the vindication of an eternal law of the universe, of a principle in which all human beings, throughout all generations, would be interested. That ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, he said to the sick of the palsy, Arise, and go into thine house.' That they may know there is a Ruler over their spirits and over their bodies-a giver of peace and life to both; that they may understand He is bringing them a message of reconciliation and Forgiveness from His Father; that He is Himself the bond of this reconciliation and forgiveness; therefore is this man made a sound creature again. A grand Gospel to humanity, if that is so; a deliverance from all the plots and contrivances for purchasing forgiveness of sins which men have devised, and which have been welcomed by sin-sick consciences, not for their relief but for the increase of their torment. And I will add, my friends, a warning to ourselves, whenever we are tempted to use the formula, 'Who is this that speaketh_blasphemies?' It was used, so the Evangelists tell us, by the most approved doctors of the day against the Son of Man. It was used to condemn the thought that He really expresses the will of His Father towards men. It was used as an excuse for putting Him to death. Let us have an intense dread of blasphemy; but let us keep these things in recollection when we are in haste to charge any brother with it.

In treating these different works of our Lord as manifestations of an abiding invisible power, which is never exerted irregularly, which is always exerted by a Father for the well-being of His children, I have had only to recover those exact New Testament expressions which we have carelessly or

wilfully deserted for others far feebler, it seems to me, and suggesting often an opposite sense. But I am also vindicating the common faith of simple people; that which has been continually making itself heard above our noisy arguments. These stories of the draught of the fishes, of the leper, of the palsied man, have been appropriated to their own use by people of every age and country in various circumstances and extremities. They have broken through all opinions and traditions which said that these were peculiar events from which no precedent could be drawn, and which had nothing corresponding to them in ordinary human experience. A true and divine instinct-the instinct of workers and sufferers-has perceived in all these instances the signs of a Son of Man, the witnesses of His presence with them just as much as with those who were gathered about the boats on the lake of Gennesareth, or were met in the room the tiling of which was broken to let down the bed.

(4) The next words will illustrate my meaning. And after these things he went forth, and saw a publican, named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he said unto him, Follow me. And he left all, rose up, and followed him.' How does our Liturgy treat this event? O Almighty God,' we thus pray in the Collect for the 21st September,' who by thy blessed Son didst call Matthew from the receipt of custom to be an Apostle and Evangelist; Grant us grace to forsake all covetous desires, and inordinate love of riches, and to follow the same thy Son Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end.' This is not, in the cant language sometimes adopted by preachers—a language curiously combining vulgarity with profaneness—improving the

story of Levi or Matthew to our use. It is grounded on the assumption that the Lord of Matthew is our Lord; that the Lord who called Matthew is calling us; that we have the same temptations as he had; that by trust in that Lord we can resist them as he did. The principle applies in all cases. He shewed forth to Matthew the power which He exerts regularly and habitually over human wills, just as He shewed forth to the leper and the palsied the power which He exerts regularly and habitually over human bodies.

(5) It will scarcely be questioned that in the next paragraph He announced an unchanging law of His kingdom. The new disciple invited Him to a feast. He ate and drank with publicans and sinners. The Scribes and Pharisees murmured. They that are whole,' He said, 'need not a physician; but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.' The objection belongs to all times; for the Pharisaic temper reappears in all. I can coin new phrases, and seem to discard—even contemptuously to discard-old ones. But essentially it never changes. And the answer to its arguments is equally unchangeable. None can be invented which is so complete as this, which is not involved in this. There is none which is so cutting and so comprehensive.

(6) We want some name, if we could find one, to gather up these different lessons; to tell us what that Person was who wielded all these different powers. Before we finish the chapter the name is uttered. The doubt had arisen why our Lord's disciples did not fast like those of John and of the Pharisees. The answer is, The BRIDEGROOM is with them. That expression contains all that we have been learning, or trying to learn, from the records of our Lord's work on earth.

The Bridegroom of Humanity had come forth. He was entering into its sorrows and joys, taking upon Himself all its burdens, that He might purify it, and exalt it, and give it a share of His glory. The children of the Bridechamber, those who were told of the great marriage, and were to bear the tidings of it to all kindreds and people, could not fast while they had the discovery of His presence. There might come times, very dark times, when He would seem to be hidden from them, and from their universe. They would have reason for fasting in those days. But even in those days they would be reminded by outward changes in their discipline and mode of life, that what former ages looked for had come to pass; that He who revealed God by His sympathy with man had appeared. His appearing would be the consummation of an old age, the beginning of a new. The vestures of the old time would not be suitable for that which was at hand; it must have a vesture of its own. The old vessels would not be adapted to the new wine; it would require vessels of its own. Is the coming Kingdom then to trample upon the past? Is it not that eternal Kingdom in which the past and the present and the future are united? Is not this the Kingdom which Christ declared by His words and His deeds? Is it not of this Kingdom that we have been made heirs? Oh that God may teach us what our inheritance is. that He may enable us fully to enter upon it!